I've had people ask me, for the last few years, where exactly News of the Stoopid came from.
Good question.
Thinking about it, the idea that someone should really start reporting the sort of idiocy I kept encountering first occurred to me on a train in 1996. Oddly, while I've told people this story IRL before, it never really occurred to me to write it down [in its unaltered form; it did appear with fictional names and locations and circumstances in something I wrote later that year] until now.
So. This is why I created the News of the Stoopid.

In the summer of 1996, an idiot hit my car. I had a 1986 Fiero SE, which was actually a cool car, believe it or not. It was also pretty tough. A moron in an SUV slammed into it and did no noticeable damage to it. I found out later, when it exploded, that he'd managed to crack the radiator; Fieros were never much good at working without a serious cooling system.
So my car was dead. So I needed a new one.
I also needed to go to DuhMoines for a few things. Usually, I'd drive there from Denver--mostly because you can't smoke on aeroplanes anymore. That wasn't an option this time.
Busses are a lot like planes in that you can't smoke on them; otherwise, they're cheaper, take three times as long to drive seven hundred miles as a car does, and they really suck since they're filled with the sort of people who take the bus. So that was out too.
Then it hit me: a train.
Well, the train didn't hit me; the idea of using a train hit me. Although, in retrospect, that was at least as damaging, all things considered.
So I called Amtrak, since they do trains. And I set up this trip. I could smoke on this train; no problem at all. Also, since I'm in First Class, I have all the food I can eat, and drinks, and whatever else comes with First Class. I put it on plastic, and that was that.
Then, I went off to board the train.

The train was going to leave at about six that night; they recommended that I got there a little early, to get everything taken care of--baggage and whatever. So I did.
The first step to getting on the train is to put your bags somewhere. So I went to the place where you put your bags and gave them to the guy to put on the train.
He gave them back.
You can't put bags on a train in Denver if you're getting off in DuhMoines, because you're not actually getting off in DuhMoines: you're getting off in Osceola, Iowa, which is in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, the train slows down just enough to let you jump off of it, and there's no way to have your bags unloaded at the time.
Lovely.
So what I'm supposed to do now is to just take this stuff onto the train with me. Because I'll have to take it off the train with me. Because they can't put it in the baggage car.
So I walk a mile with all this stuff to the actual train.
At the actual train, they tell me I can't get on with all this stuff, and that I should walk a mile back to the building to have it placed in the baggage car; I tell them that I already tried that, and they told me I couldn't do that because there's no depot in Osceola; the porter tells me they're full of shit, and I should go tell them he said so.
So I walk a mile back with my luggage and this message for them.
Back in the building, I learn that the porter is full of shit, and wouldn't know anything anyway because he's just a porter; I should explain to the porter that he's full of shit, and take my stuff onto the train anyway.
Fine.
I walk a third mile back to the train, and extend the guy's thoughts to the porter, who gets really pissed about it. I should walk a fourth mile back to the building and--
No.
I'm not walking any further with all this stuff. I tell the porter that he's either letting me on the train with all this stuff right now, or he's getting it into the baggage car for me.
We compromised. We both walked the mile back to the building to straighten it all out.
What got straightened out was that there was no depot in Osceola, so the stuff couldn't go into the baggage car. So it had to stay with me.
The porter suddenly believed the guy, so we walked a fifth mile back to the damned train.
I got on the train, and the porter instantly started in again.
I can have my stuff here on the train, but not in my First Class room. Because, in the event that the train derailed, the only way I could be hurt was if I had my stuff with me in my room. It had to go into this closet in the corridor, where anyone could get to it.
Oh good.
Deciding that the porter had already proved himself an idiot, I went along with it for a moment. Once he'd left, I put everything back in my room, thinking that, if the train derailed, I'd logically have a better chance of surviving if I'd padded the room with all this stuff anyway. Then I lit a cigarette.
How the porter had worked out that I'd lit a cigarette, but not that I'd transplanted everything back into my room is something I'll probably never work out. But he knew about it, and he told me I couldn't smoke in there.
I told him that the guy on the phone had told me I could smoke in my First Class Room; the porter determined that the guy on the phone was also full of shit.
I'm starting to think that the porter's definition of full of shit may differ from everyone else's; especially after the guy telling me that I couldn't put my stuff in the baggage car turned out to be both correct and full of shit.
I went outside with my cigarette. No point getting thrown off the train by this idiot before we've even left.
And about that: we're supposed to leave at six. It's now almost seven. I'm still with the train, but I'm still in Denver. I deduce, from that, that we haven't left yet. I go off to find out why.
Unfortunately, the guy who knew why was the porter. Great.
It turns out that we haven't left let because we're waiting for the train to arrive.
I'm standing there, looking at the train, as he tells me this.
Not that train. The train which is late getting to Denver from Seattle. That train has to get to Denver, and then be connected to the train we already have. Then we can go.
Also, we aren't sure where the train currently is; no one's heard from it lately.
So we're back to waiting.
I could probably go into some detail about what went on for the next five hours, but I won't. In the end of the beginning, the train finally gave up on the train from Seattle and left Denver without it. That was at midnight.

Midnight.
I'm on the train, in my First Class Room. I can't smoke in there. And I have nothing to eat or to drink. The porter comes by.
He asks if there's anything else I need tonight. I give him the list.
A cigarette.
I can't have one. Because I can't smoke in my First Class Room, and the smoking car vanished without a trace when it left Seattle and never arrived in Denver.
Food.
I missed dinner, because the train didn't leave Denver until midnight, and the kitchen is now closed; there will be food again in the morning.
A drink.
A drink is no problem; what do I want.
I thought about that. When I got to DuhMoines, I'd be staying with Corey--this friend of mine who sang in a band called StoneSour. StoneSour was actually named after a type of drink; so, while it was a sort of private joke, I ordered one.
For five bucks.
The guy on the phone who told me that drinks were free was, naturally, full of shit.
Coffee and soda were all I could get for free. And the way to get them was to go out into the corridor where they were. But: there was no point, since I might as well just get some sleep since I wouldn't be reaching Osceola until eleven in the morning now. Incidentally, that was the next stop for the train, so I couldn't smoke until then anyway.
I didn't kill him. I just fully concluded that he was an idiot and got rid of him. Then I got some coffee.
I wandered into the dining car, which was empty and useless, with my coffee and laptop. Then the battery died and I wandered back to my room for my palmtop. Then I went back to the dining car where there were no ashtrays. Then I tried to get anything done without cigarettes, factoring that I'd got up at about four in the afternoon and wasn't going to be tired until just before I got to Osceola.
Then a girl walked by and asked what I was doing. I told her. She asked if writing was business or pleasure; I told her it was both; she told me that was halfway good then.
Then she walked on, into the next car.
Then she never came back.
After about half an hour, I started to wonder what was in the next car. I went off to find out.
The next car was the observation car. What it observed in the middle of the night in rural Colorado was anyone's guess. What I observed was that it was the last car on the train. Beyond that car was the track.
She'd jumped.
She'd jumped off the fucking train.
She wasn't in the observation car, and she'd never come back out of it. She'd fucking jumped.
I wasn't sure who I could tell about that, what good it would do, or whether I really wanted to get involved in it. So I just wandered around the observation car, looking under tables to make sure she wasn't hiding somewhere.
Then I heard laughing. A lot of it.
Okay: so she hadn't jumped, and she had a bunch of laughing, invisible friends who thought it was funny that she'd got me thinking that she'd jumped.
The damned car was empty. And there were people in it. And they were laughing.
I figured it out after a minute. The observation car had a basement. A spiral staircase led down into this other place. And it was filled with PhishHeads.
They all got nervous when I walked in. I wasn't with them, and I wasn't wearing anything colourful. They thought they were busted.
Because, of course, they'd opened the windows down there and created their own smoking section. I was home.
So here's the irony: I spend several hundred bucks extra for a First Class Room, so I can sit in a communal car with a bunch of hippy stowaways and smoke.
The girl was down there, of course. She asked what took me so long.
I explained the story to date. She thought it was funny as hell. Then it hit her: if I had a First Class Room, then I had a shower.
Yes, that was true.
She asked if she could use it, and I told her I didn't care. She thought that was great, thanked me, and rushed off into the night.
A minute later, a guy smoking a roach which must have weighed three pounds asked if I was interested.
I asked what he was asking whether I was interested in it about.
Jeanine.
The girl who had run off after ascertaining that I had a shower.
I told him I figured she was with one of them and wasn't going to cause problems in that area.
He told me that Jeanine was a free spirit, and that it was all good.
He also told me that I should probably go help her find my room so she could take a shower.
At first I thought he was joking about that. A minute later, I found her in First Class, opening everyone's door and peeking in to see whether it looked like my room. I stopped her and showed her where my room was.
It turned out that the guy on the phone was full of shit. I didn't have a shower at all. I had a lot of towels, but no shower.
The showers turned out to be in--where else--the Shower Car.
So we went off to find that. And she went in to take a shower. Then she came out again and asked whether I'd stand there and guard the door to make sure she didn't get caught.
Okay.
So now I'm standing in the middle of an empty car, guarding a door which no one would think to open if I weren't standing there guarding it.
It occurred to her too. She pulled me inside to guard the door from inside the room.
Now I'm in a room containing a shower containing a naked chick who didn't jump off a train. Okay.
She got out of the shower and walked back to my room in a towel. Then she took the towel off and gave it back to me. Then she pondered her next move, since her clothes were dirty and she'd abandoned them; she'd shoplifted them anyway, so it was no big loss.
Now I'm in a First Class Room with a naked chick who has no clothes.
Then she grabbed me, and one thing led to another.
Somewhere along the line, she noticed that I'm six four or so, and weigh about 135. I've got a twenty-seven-inch waist. She asked if she could steal some of my clothes.
Okay.
Then we went back to the appropriated Smoking Car until people started to wake up. The only problem I ran into before dawn was the security guard; he knew there were stowaways down there and he didn't care; he knew we were smoking down there and he didn't care; he asked whether all the coffee and soda I kept coming up for were going to the smoking stowaways, and I explained that it wasn't. I'm in First Class, after all: I'm allowed to drink all the coffee and soda I like.
So I did. Then I ran out. Of course, that was just around dawn, so it wasn't a big deal: I figured they'd make more in the morning.
They didn't.
Imagine being on a train as a First Class Passenger, hanging out with hippies, and running into all the other First Class Passengers who suddenly wake up screaming because there's no fucking coffee made.
Mister Full of Shit Porter explained that the coffee was made the night before, and he can't imagine what happened to it during the night; all of First Class decided that the porter was full of shit.
So now we're waiting for the crew to get up and start making coffee for all us First Class Passengers who can't believe that there's no coffee; naturally, I was complaining the loudest.
And, oh yeah: Feed Me.
Of course, breakfast was slightly delayed, since some bastard had drunk all the damned coffee during the night. The crew had to make all this coffee first, so they'd be awake enough to make everything else.
So now I'm sitting in the Dining Car, waiting for food to happen to me. I'm the only one in there at all.
After a while, the Cleavers came in and sat down on the other side of the car. Then this midget came over and told me that I had to move.
Seriously: this hideous little freak of nature was a damned Ewok. My dick was bigger than she was. And she wouldn't shut the fuck up about how critical it was that I moved over and sat with the Cleavers--granting that I'd never even seen them before--because the car was otherwise going to fill up and there wouldn't be enough seats for everyone.
Aside from that, the goddamned thing spoke no English at all. I finally gave up and sat with the Cleavers, apologising for the little mutant who'd made me come over. Once the thing had left, I started to get up; but I didn't get up, because Fucking Methuselah got jammed into the seat right next to me.
I've run into old people before. This guy, however, looked like someone had baked Mister PotatoHead.
Oddly, Mister PotatoHead was a fucking idiot, and he wouldn't let me out of the damned booth.
The Cleavers, meanwhile, were delighted to have me there.
Of course, I'm not entirely stoopid. I instantly enacted the one thing guaranteed to get dumb people to let you go away. I reached for a cigarette.
If a deity exists, it truly fucking hates me. I'd smoked my last one in the Smoking Hippy Car; the rest were still in the carton, in my room, where I wasn't.
So I was stuck.
At least I had the option of eating something now.
I grabbed the menu, perfunctorily responding to the Cleavers' brainless questions: what do you do for a living have you ever been on a train before do you like it in our country we've never met a palaeontologist [I chose palaeontologist as my vocation that time] before did you see Jurassic Park what did you think of it we thought that the raptors were too mean the bible says that they never ate meat before the fall do you believe in Jesus....
The French Toast was the safest-looking thing on the menu; I ordered that.
The idiotic questions continued; Mister PotatoHead regrettably noticed that he was still alive, and started talking to me at the same time that the Cleavers were talking to me: A lot of people don't realise that I'm an indian, he suddenly tells me, as if I'd asked, because I've got blonde hair.
Understand that this guy didn't have any hair. Not even eyelashes; he was a fucking potato.
Then: it happened. The Creature That Made All These Other Creatures Look Normal. It.
I call it It because, to this day, I don't know what its gender was. It was about five feet tall, five feet wide, five feet deep, had this sort of badly-permed Elvis Presley bouffant hair thing going on, had more facial hair than a fucking Viking, and had those octagonal-framed glasses held it to its face by these underwire-support retainer clips of cheeks. It had three teeth. It made noises like a whale doing its impression of a fork being dragged across a chalkboard. It was It.
And It came in and sat down in the booth across the aisle and ordered French Toast.
A few minutes later, our food showed up. For a little while.
The Cleavers got their food; Mister PotatoHead got his food, but neglected it over the opportunity to keep chanting A lot of people don't realise that I'm an indian, because I've got blonde hair; I nearly got my food, until It started screeching that It had ordered French Toast a long time ago, and so my French Toast must be Its.
The Ewok serving me my French Toast believed It, and gave It my French Toast.
So here I am, trapped by the JesusCleavers and this fucking potato, without any food, watching It eating my French Toast and grinning that Happy to Be out for a Day on the Short Bus Field Trip grin at me the whole time.
June--the female Cleaver--figured it out. She suggested to It that It had got my French Toast. It agreed.
It agreed, and explained that: I got it because I'm speschul!
That's what it said. Speschul.
Over and over again.
It gloated for several minutes about how speschul it was. Because that was the only way it could get my French Toast: by being speschul.
It--and I'm not making this up; I'd never think of this to make it up; it had to happen in order for me to be able to talk about it at all--It produced a cardboard camera and gave it to Ward--the male Cleaver--and asked him to take a picture of It with my French Toast. Ward did.
And all the while, Mister PotatoHead is going on about how no one ever realises that he's a fucking parrot, because he's a fucking idiot.
And June is smiling brainlessly and attributing my French Toast to a lord who works in mysterious ways.
And I'm fucking trapped. The ceiling is too close to the back of the booth to climb over it. I'm trapped.
Oh, and: all that coffee that some bastard drank in the night? It wants out. Badly.
Finally my French Toast arrives. And I realise just how speschul this fucking creature really is. Imagine PopTarts if they had no filling.
I snapped.
I made it very clear to everyone on the train what I thought of everyone on the train. Loudly. I'm that guy, if anyone ever told you a story about the tall guy in black who suddenly snapped and started screaming about the Cleavers and the Mutant Indian and the Fucking Speschul Anomaly who wouldn't shut the fuck up about the French Toast.
Then, something strange happened.
We passed a sign. It read: OSCEOLA, IA: 5 MI.
At that point, no one was in any hurry to prevent me from getting away from the table. I got to the damned men's room, and then to my own. The porter was there, asking where I'd been since he'd been looking for me to tell me that my stop was coming up. He also wondered how all that stuff ended up in my room. I grabbed it together and went down to leap off the moving train.
It turned out that I didn't have to. The train stopped-albeit in the middle of nowhere-for about an hour. To give the Seattle Train another chance to catch up again.
I got away from the train to the car. My agent was picking me up from this benighted location. She asked how my trip had been. I lit a cigarette and promptly didn't kill her.

So. If anyone ever asks why I'd be angry enough with the world to create News of the Stoopid, refer them to this explanation.

--Gremlin